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As a grammatically conscientious person who frequents internet forums and YouTube, I have found it necessary to develop a few coping mechanisms. When someone types out "u" instead of "you," instead of getting mad, I imagine them having only one finger on each hand and then their actions seem reasonable. If I only had one finger on each hand, I'd leave out unnecessary letters too!

If I come across a person who seems to completely ignore the existence of apostrophes and capital letters and types things like "im an eagle and im typing with my talons, so dont make fun of me cuz this is hard," I like to imagine that they actually are an eagle typing with their talons. It would be a hassle if you had to hop in the air and use your feet to karate-chop two keys simultaneously every time you wanted to use the shift key to make a capital letter. Also, eagles lack manual dexterity, so I can understand why they'd want to leave out apostrophes. Eagles are all about efficiency.

But there is one grammatical mistake that I particularly enjoy encountering. It has become almost fun for me to come across people who take the phrase "a lot" and condense it down into one word, because when someone says "alot," this is what I imagine:

The Alot is an imaginary creature that I made up to help me deal with my compulsive need to correct other people's grammar. It kind of looks like a cross between a bear, a yak and a pug, and it has provided hours of entertainment for me in a situation where I'd normally be left feeling angry and disillusioned with the world.

For example, when I read the sentence "I care about this alot," this is what I imagine:

Similarly, when someone says "alot of _______", I picture an Alot made out of whatever they are talking about.

If someone says something like "I feel lonely alot" or "I'm angry alot," I'm going to imagine them standing there with an emo haircut, sharing their feelings with an Alot.

The Alot is incredibly versatile.

So the next time you are reading along and you see some guy ranting about how he is "alot better at swimming than Michael Phelps," instead of getting angry, you can be like "You're right! Alots are known for their superior swimming capabilities."

784 comments:

Ahahahaha. Good grief. It's like you have a creepy window into my brain. (I bet you get many people who try and make you think that they are JUST like you, in an attempt to make you like them more, don't you?). Thank you for making me cry at least 5 times (no hyperbole) from laughter in the week since I discovered your blog. I think I have maybe 7 posts left to read from last September, and then I will have read the whole thing.I'm sure you've seen this, but:http://theoatmeal.com/comics/apostrophe

I'm expecting a Twitter account called "Alot" to show up and auto-retweet tweets containing "alot." Of course it would use the "I care about this alot" drawing as the icon. I would totally subscribe. It would give me giggles.

Also, I mus say that I am a culprit in the "u" department. It is because I'm usually typing from my phone and am lazy and choose to use that shortcut. :P plus, I technically AM only using two fingers (or thumbs, as the case may be)...so I think perhaps I can have amnesty?

When I was in J-school, I had a writing teacher who said, "It isn't a lot unless you can put a house on it." (What?? I went to school in the south.) I don't think I want to live on Alot though. That just seems unnecessarily cruel.

I was ranting earlier today about the misuse of "you're" and "your", as well as "there", "their", and "they're". Those are my biggest pet peeves by far. However, "a lot", "alot", and the occasional "allot" definitely annoy me as well. Nicely done. Cheers.

As Heather just said, it's like you have a creepy window into my brain. Especially as I only discovered you last night & have been since spamming my friends and my FB feed with links to you. I think you're the best thing EVER.

The fact that your first new post since my happy discovery is about grammar peeves, on the internet, creeps me out because I am a long-established grammar peeves ranter. (Also? I am a hypocritical run-on sentence abuser.) It's a delicious creepy, though. Like your post about spiders.

I'm a professionally trained proofreader, so I notice when people don't know how to write. It takes a great deal of self control for me to not spend hours a day correcting grammar and spelling on YouTube. But now I have fun mental images to make the ignoring of mistakes more fun. Thanks, Allie. Those drawings will make the internet far more tolerable for the literate.

I wanted to tell you funny things about how I'm trying desperately to convince the internet to give me a job as an editor, but I think you broke me. I love the Alot so damn much. If I ever do get that job, I swear to email pictures of sad Alots to bad authors. That is, unless said emailing would cause the copyright beast to come eat me.

Anonymous, if you did that intentionally, you are a bad person and should feel bad about yourself. And if you're just the kind of person who abuses homophones willy-nilly, you should know that I'm working on developing a new internet wherein grammar fascists can proofread everything anyone writes. Coming soon.

So... now I want to see what a Noone looks like. Especially the one that cares what you think.

By the way, you're amazing; you must make the overall-awesomeness-meter for Montana go up five or six degrees all by yourself.This is the first time I've commented, but I've been laughing out loud at your posts for almost a week now. Since I don't laugh, this is an accomplishment of no little merit.The downside is, I have an evil super-villain laugh, and my roommate now wakes up in the wee hours of the morning to me cackling in the dark. =D

I too am a compulsive grammar freak and I absolutely have to correct people the minute I see an error. I'll let you in on a secret, when I started reading this post and gathered from the first sentence that it was about grammar perfection, I had this thought:

"Aha, here's Allie talking about being grammatically conscientious and she's used "alot" instead of "a lot" in the post title! How embarrassing, I am so going to write a comment to point that out!"

Then I read on and I realised how much of a terrible person and a fool I am. Ahh well...

P.S. This is a wonderful creation you've made here. From now on when I read "alot", my usual frustration shall be transformed into laughter and happy memories. Thank you :D

This is a much nicer explanation of the correct use for the term as oppossed to my Lawyer Friend who likes to shout, "Only f*cking morons write "alot"!" Hey! There's an idea. In addition to being the Winner of the Internet, maybe you can teach morons. Just something to think about...

oh man. i felt it.right thru the heart. i almost NEVER use proper capitalization/apostrophi-cation and often substitute letters (or numbers) 4 words when it comes to commenting on sites. i make the effort when it comes to my own blog but it's (<-----i did that one just for you) not something that comes easily.im super lazy and kind of hate caps unless used for effect. the proof is in the pudding with this comment.

You complete me - alot. =P Oh, but this is sooo helpful - now anytime I want to kill myself over seeing "alot" or "hey u want 2 c me 2day" I'll either just think of a nice giant fuzzy creature, or pity their lack of digits.

I'm guessing that you also get frustrated watching those commercial advertising useless products like the Slapchop. I know this because they frustrate ME to no end. Since we have this grammatical correctness fixation in common, I'm assuming you too, are afflicted with the need to vent when some idiot yells that YOU NEED to purchase this machine!!! Who cares that it pulverizes vegetables I already had to chop up finely, using a knife, so I could USE his damn contraption in the first place.

Yep. I'll be in therapy Mondays and Wednesdays, do you want to carpool?

True story, I know someone with only one finger on each hand, AND HE TYPES OUT FULL WORDS. Cuz he isn't a lazy asshole. I like the Alot a lot... I will think of him next time someone commits that grammar folly.

Oh, sheesh....I am horrible about the "alot" monster. The husband nags me about it constantly, so when he gets home & sees your post about this specific grammatical error, he will rain on my parade...alot. :)

1. my students will love this alot2. although i also have many grammatical pet peeves, i also have this weird thing about capital letters (i feel as though they make the other letters feel less important), so i tend to avoid them3. i think many people will agree that the biggest punctuation pain in the ass is the unncessary apostrophe. "the brown's"... what? house? mailbox? ugly sign?

I L to the O the the V to the E the Alot! they are adorable, especially the 'i like this Alot' one. i feel really bad for the pale Alot on 'i like this Alot more'. i love you Alot! you have cute eyes! Haha, i'm not a good speller and my grammar is pathetic, however i do have a slight meltdown when rules i HAVE managed to learnt are broken by others. i can assure you, if i have learnt it, you can learn it. i wanted to go all battle-mode when i read an above comment that stated 'your a grammar natzi'. great post Ali!

Hahaha, I'm dying of laughter and I COMPLETELY share in your disdain for incorrect grammar! My least favorite - even more than 'alot' is when people write things like "your cool". I always feel like asking, "my cool...what?"

You should license this post to teachers everywhere. I would maybe even pay you if you'd let me use it with my students. Seriously. (Like, $5, but still.) Granted, I teach Latin, so I don't need to yell at them about things like apostrophes or "alot" that often, but it would be an awesome set of illustrations to have around.

ACTUALLY, make a big poster of this and put it in your store. Just give me a discount for sharing such a wonderful idea with you.

You are hilarious. I stumbled across your blog a week or so ago, and my friends and I have been reading and laughing hysterically. Seriously, I've been at the point of hyperventilating. I'm thinking about starting my own blog. Sorry, got to go. GLEE'S ON! OH MY GOD!

At my elementary school, our spelling book taught us to spell it as one word, "alot". Granted, it WAS the 80's, and it WAS Catholic school. But the book said so, so I grew up and did what the book said, because I'm a good Catholic girl and I follow the rules, despite the fact that using "alot" has caused me to be the victim of ridicule and social ostracism for 20 years. It hurts, Allie, but I do it because the workbook told me to.

What can I say? You're a genius. I'd personally begun to suspect that people who comment on YouTube were some underground tribe of grammatically-challenged baffoons that were created to play a cruel joke on humanity.

I too have issues with those who have problems with grammar. I really like your idea. I am going to adopt it, because otherwise, I will probably end up in the fetal position in bed, sucking my thumb and moaning softly.

Thank you for introducing this coping mechanism. I needed it, the internetz sometimes fill me with rage, especially whe it spills out into real life. :(Do you also have one for common "spelling" errors, like "too/to", "lose/loose", and other things o' that natchah? (sorry, Fat Joe usurps that phrase. I have several words I can't say on my own anymore, and make me look [more] crazy when I interject them into conversation. Carry on.)

Hilarious, but you knew that. Thank you for the Alot, he is now part of my life. <3

My dear, I realize that language and grammar are organic and are allowed to change. However, I feel I have found a kindred spirit in you. So what happened to the "there're". As in "there are." I seen in print all the time "there's three things," when it should read "there're." Even my spell checker tells me this is no longer a word. YEECH!!

The Alot rocks! Go Grammar Police! I cope by purposely using phrases like "less gooder." It's over the top enough that people know I'm joking but is a nice outlet for irritation with the grammatically challenged...

Very funny, Ms. Brosh. It seems your recent fame has piqued the interest of several area trolls. Your posts have not suffered, however, and I recommend the immortal words of Dr. Thompson, "don't take any guff from these swine!"

While the internet and texting have clearly joined forces to dumb-ify the world, these are useful defense tactics. (Although they aren't so much defending against the dumb as they are defending the dumb from you, and now countless others, who can now think of cute furry alots when the desire to maul some hapless teenager with their iPhone strikes.)

You just made my day. After hours of reading 400-level fiction stories with poor syntax and uninteresting plots, I needed a little laughter. Thank you for always providing me with a place to go where I don't feel like a grammar nerd (or the only grammar nerd).

Ha ha ha ha!!! Awesome! I've taken steps to loosen it up a bit during social interactions because I was always made fun of for not being "black enough", which is basically the "down" peoples' way of saying I should act more "ignant". I'm just not good good at being social and I never know the right thing to say. As stupid as it seems even to me, I sometimes backspace and rewrite things so it looks like I'm not such a nerd. Random Question #1: How often do your followers' comments piss you off?Random Question #2: Do you like chocolate cake?

Wow - such great coping mechanisms! I am so relieved that now I don't have to hit someone over the head (usually the person within my reach who may or may not be completely innocent and extremely confused as to why I'm shouting and hitting them repeatedly in the head) when I come across atrocious internet grammar. I appreciate it! :D

I just have to say that the picture of the "I hear that Alot" had me on the floor laughing so hard I cried. Working on a college campus this most likely looked strange to the students passing by the large window into my office. That made my Tuesday quite a bit more interesting!

But seriously, that picture of the Alot fixed my horrible week. Thanks for the great posts!

I was in fifth grade, Mr. Edwards' English class. We were having the very FIRST spelling test of the school year. It was explained to us that we would have to spell ten words and to number our papers appropriately.

The first word was "a lot".

I had a conundrum upon hearing that, my eleven year old self. I knew, rationally, that "a lot" was two words and not one, but at the same time we were specifically instructed that we would be spelling ten words, so by that logic the first word was just that, A word. I had to guess what Mr. Edwards was looking for - and maybe, just maybe I was wrong after all and "a lot" wasn't two words but one word after all?

I wrote:

1. alot

When I got my test back and found it marked wrong I was so angry. Angry that I had been tricked, angry that what we were told and what was expected were clearly two different things, and most distressingly that now Mr. Edwards thought that I thought "a lot" was one word instead of two.

It has bothered me so much that here I sit twenty-four years later and I'm still mad about it.

LOL! Your eagle and your alot would get along famously with archy, the cockroach poet who couldn't press shift and a letter at the same time. There was a glorious day when his typewriter was left in shift mode and HE GOT TO WRITE CAPITALS FOR A WHILE. ;) You'd love the books!

I just discovered your blog this week. It has pretty much rendered me completley incapable of productive activity, which would be frightening if I chose to really think about it, fortunately I don't. Over the passed 2 nights I have read 185 posts. Yeah, all of them. I had to use a calculator to add them up since my brain is pretty much dead. Yesterday I went to sleep so late that I missed work this morning. By approximately 7 hours. Is this what you want?!? To get me fired? Do you know who would probably replace me?!?

If you guessed William Shatner you're probably correct. However, this is a price I am willing to pay because this blog is awesome. And according to the transitive property you are awesome. And because I now read your blog...I am now awesome. Which fits pretty well in the "Things-To-Achieve-Before-I-Get-Old-and-Lose-Control-of-My-Bladder" Life Plan

huh... to be honest, I completely disagree. I think its interesting how as time changes so does speech and rhetoric. The means to which we communicate and the shear volume of communication that we share these days lends itself to "mistakes" and changes. What I think is even more interesting is the anger and intolerance that arises from these grammatical "errors". I understand that we're taught right and wrong from a very early age but I question the powerful energy that this generates in the wrong direction. What if these people haven't been dealt the fine education that you obviously have? And when it comes down to it, the goal of communication is the transmission of ideas. As long as the message is not misunderstood, than who the fuck cares? I have to wonder whether this type of intolerant mindset carries over to other facets of life... hmmm... scary.

A. Brilliant post - my mum-in-law sent me the link so now I'm going to have to go back through your previous posts to see what other gems you have provided. I love the Alot and want him as a pet. I'm sitting here thinking of the various things an Alot could be made from. The weirdest one I can think of is Alot of people...bleurgh.

B. @SDP - "I have to wonder whether this type of intolerant mindset carries over to other facets of life... hmmm... scary."

Implying bigotry to someone who dislikes poor grammar is scarily close to invoking Godwin's Law. Impatience and frustration with idiocy is vastly different to being intolerant of others for other reasons. The fact that there is SO much *laziness* in online writing is what makes me so mad. People who type U instead of You know the difference, they're just too lazy to write the proper word. People who write Your instead of You're: if they haven't learned the difference, it's probably because they weren't paying attention when it was taught in school - it was in my school but there were loads of students who still got it wrong! Also, it's sheer. Shear is for sheep.

I'm compulsive with my grammar and punctuations as well. My coworker is ready to slap me for always correcting her english (such a bitchy thing for me to do) and now that I have this stupid new touch screen phone, its really difficult to get everything right. That thing has a mind of its own. And I pride myself on knowing the difference between "its" and "it's." That is all.

Of course you realize that I am now going to have to look through my blog to see if I can find an Alot among my own posts. If I find one, I guess I will be okay with him living there...after all, Alot's are rather cute! Awesome post!